Challenges of decent work for smallholders and agricultural workers: reflections on the Global South

Praveen Jha

Chapter 20 in The Elgar Companion to Decent Work and the Sustainable Development Goals, 2025, pp 247-258 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: As per the recent estimates, almost 45 percent of the global population constitutes households for whom agricultural activities continue to be significant in their livelihoods. Of these over 80 percent are small-holders, operating up to 2 hectares. In developing countries, about 50 to 90 percent of population depends on agriculture; of these 70 to 95 percent are small holders and agricultural workers, trapped in the long-term structural-historical legacy of global capitalist trajectory. This paper focuses on the current juncture, often characterized as the neo-liberal regime that has been ascendant since the 1970s. Hallmark of this regime is an overarching macroeconomic framework driven by ‘market-fundamentalism’, which has implied that almost all the major correlates pertaining to the well-being of small-holders and agricultural workers, such as livelihoods, assets, incomes, working conditions, etc., have received major setbacks, especially in the South. The so-called ‘peasant agriculture’ in the developing world, directly and indirectly accounting for close to three billion human beings, have been subjected to ever-increasing stress, with decent work conditions being a mirage for them.

Keywords: Business and Management; Development Studies; Economics and Finance; Sociology and Social Policy; Sustainable Development Goals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035300907.00027 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:21934_20

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().